History is not just about dates and quotations. And it's not just about politics, the military and social issues, though much of it of course is about that. It's about everything. It's about life history. It's human. And we have to see it that way. We have to teach it that way. We have to read it that way. It's about art, music, literature, money, science, love - the human experience.

It was a day and age that saw no reason why one could not learn whatever was required - learn vitally anything - by the close study of books.

I can fairly be called an amateur because I do what I do, in the original sense of the word - for love, because I love it. On the other hand, I think that those of us who make our living writing history can also be called true professionals.

Any nation that expects to be ignorant and free," Jefferson said, "expects what never was and never will be." And if the gap between the educated and the uneducated in America continues to grow as it is in our time, as fast as or faster than the gap between the rich and the poor, the gap between the educated and the uneducated is going to be of greater consequence and the more serious threat to our way of life. We must not, by any means, misunderstand that.

Every book is a new journey. I never felt I was an expert on a subject as I embarked on a project.

Why limit yourself to the experience of your own relatively brief time on earth, according to your biological clock, when the whole realm of the human experience reaching back infinitely far is available to you?

Read. Read every chance you get. Read to keep growing. Read history. Read poetry. Read for pure enjoyment. Read a book called Life on a Little Known Planet. It's about insects. It will make you feel better.